So my fiancé and I have a two month old baby girl. I’m type 1 diabetic so even though I had a perfectly healthy and uncomplicated pregnancy, it took a ton of work and it was mentally draining. My entire induction/labor/delivery was an absolute nightmare. It started by the hospital basically telling me that my birth plan didn’t matter and they would do as they pleased (anyone with t1d knows that the insulin drip is usually where everything goes to hell). I ended up fighting them on it and managing my own diabetes and it worked out much better than if they’d handled it. Then they started in with even if I didn’t have an epidural they wouldn’t let me move because I was being induced and they had a protocol for inductions. So for 38 hours I laid miserably in bed with no movement to help progress my labor. They knocked me out with Benadryl because of inflammation and the whole experience was a nightmare until I delivered via c-section. The nurse kindly informed me that even though everything was great I wouldn’t be allowed skin to skin with my baby because they’d be taking her to NICU for observation because I was a pre-gestational diabetic. Her blood sugar and apgar were perfect so I pushed for the skin to skin and the NICU nurse agreed (since there was nothing wrong).

After this whole ordeal, I only got three weeks home with my baby girl because even though my fiancé got two weeks paid paternity leave, I got no paid leave. So three weeks post c-section I went back to work. And that’s really why I’m writing this whole thing. The awful delivery just made it worse.

I get up in the middle of the night with the baby and I get up with her in the morning before my fiancé gets up for work. I feed her, change her, wash and sterilize bottles, play with her, pack her up and bring her to the store, appointments, etc. Right now I’m back at work part time so my mom watches her while I’m gone. When I get home, he’s still at work. He’ll often eat before he gets home, go right into shower, and maybe see the baby for an hour before bed time. He doesn’t even know how much powder to mix to make her formula.

On Sunday he was sent home early because Hurricane Henri was supposed to hit us pretty hard. He showered and then laid in bed watching TV and playing on his phone while I did five loads of laundry, cleaned, emptied out multiple old closets, etc. When the baby started fussing he said he didn’t know what to do because she was dry, fed, and her pacifier was in her mouth. I told him she either wanted to be held or she was bored. He had the nerve to say there was nothing to do. I told him she had plenty of toys to play with and he walked away to go outside and smoke a cigarette. When he came back I’d covered the bed with her toys and he played with her for maybe five minutes, then ignored her and the bags of laundry that needed to be folded. Come time for her last bottle, he decided to go to bed while I fed and changed her and then went to the kitchen to wash and sterilize bottles and take out the garbage and clean the baby’s humidifier.

I’m really fed up from having no help from him. My full time job goes back on Monday and I’ll have that, my part time job, continuing education classes, and all the housework. I even have an interview for another free-lance job. Is it just me? Am I wrong to expect more help?

Oh. And he hurt his foot at work today so he’ll be helping less. Though I don’t know that that’s possible.